


Haridwar

by fallen_woman



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-15
Updated: 2010-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-06 07:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallen_woman/pseuds/fallen_woman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's so great about Saltaire? Hildy gets crushes too easily. Hildy gets crushed too easily. Takes place during "The Souvenir," but spoilers for S3 finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haridwar

  
  
  
**Entry tags:** |   
[fic](http://fallen-woman.livejournal.com/tag/fic), [mad men](http://fallen-woman.livejournal.com/tag/mad+men)  
  
---|---  
  
_ **Fic: [Mad Men] Haridwar (Hildy/Peggy)** _

Title: Haridwar  
Fandom: Mad Men  
Rating: PG-13  
Characters: Hildy/Peggy, slight Hildy/Harry &amp; Allison/Ken &amp; Hildy/Joan  
Word Count: ~1,270  
Summary: What's so great about Saltaire? Hildy gets crushes too easily. Hildy gets crushed too easily. Takes place during "The Souvenir," but spoilers for S3 finale.

Because Lillian dropped out Thursday night with a head cold, Karen Ericson brought her roommate. Hildy blinked. "I didn't realize you two were rooming together."

Peggy gave a pained little smile, squeezing the handles of her taupe valise. "I'm sorry I made you all wait. I had to finish something at the office."

The five of them—Allison, Hildy, Karen Ericson, Karen Jacobsen, and Peggy—caught the Friday evening train to Bay Shore, then a taxi to the dock. On the train and on the ferry to Fire Island, Hildy sat next to Allison, with the Karens behind them. Peggy stayed across the aisle, her overnight bag on her lap.

They arrived at Saltaire a quarter to 10 p.m. The beach house had sleepy gables and a subtly concave porch. Even at night, their dresses were wilted from the heat.

There was one bedroom, with one Queen bed. Karen Ericson immediately claimed the shower.

"I have to freshen up tonight. You never know what could happen." She unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it, slinging it over her shoulder like a bullfighter's cape.

Shoving her shoes in the closet, Allison raised an eyebrow. "You're still paying your share for the house, even if you don't spend the night."

After she phoned her father to confirm yes, she was alive and intact, Hildy volunteered to take the choleric-looking couch in the living room. Setting her bag next to Peggy's, she glimpsed a glossy hardcover in the crush of brown and plaid clothing. _Contes_ something.

"You brought a textbook to the beach?"

Peggy tugged the tail of a wrinkled blouse over the cover. "It's beginning French. I figure that if I start now, I'll be fluent by the time I can afford to visit Paris."

"Oh. Are you good with languages?" In the other room, Hildy could hear laughter. Allison had a way of making everybody feel witty.

"No, I'm awful." Peggy cleared her throat, frowning. "I always end up sounding like myself."

Allison bounded in the doorway, an "A" monogrammed flask loosely grasped in her left hand. "Karen J. nicked a snifter of Hennessy from the office. Did you hold up your end of the deal, Hildy?"

"The gin is on the counter," Hildy said. "Mr. Campbell practically shoved the bottle at me."

"Lucky. He _loves_ you."

"Not as much as Ken loves you."

"That man." Allison snorted and crossed her arms, the flask banging against her elbow. "Just because you admire it at the zoo, doesn't mean you want to bring it home."

Bowing her head, Hildy coughed out a laugh. She told herself it was only the mention of zoos that made her think of Harry Crane.

**********

At 4:17 a.m.—she checked her watch, her watch was sticky against her left wrist—Hildy was too excited to sleep. She lifted herself from the couch and changed into her swimsuit. It was baby blue nylon, and it tied in the front. Shutting the front door quietly, she wheeled around and started when she saw Peggy sitting cross-legged on the porch.

The other girl's head was bent over a wide notepad in the dim porch light. Her hair was slung in a low ponytail, with a tiny pencil tucked in the elastic band. She was mouthing something to herself. Mild irritation and pity mingled in Hildy; in the end, guilt won.

"Would you like to go swimming with me?"

"In the dark?" Peggy said.

Hildy rearranged the towel around her torso. "The beach will be prettier without the people."

Peggy didn't bother to hesitate. "Just let me put away my notes."

They walked idly to the water, lobbing conversation back and forth like a red rubber ball. Dust, then sand sifted inside their sandals, between their toes. In front of her, on the rocks, Peggy slipped; Hildy swiftly caught her by the shoulders. They stood flush against each other, embarrassed but unmoving. Peggy put her hands over Hildy's, rubbed the wooden beads and little wooden cross around Hildy's right wrist.

"I didn't know you were Catholic."

Hildy trailed her fingers up the side of Peggy's neck, then dropped her hand to her side. They scrabbled down the beach, sinking ankle-deep in the pebbly sand. "I was supposed to go to India on my 21st birthday. To teach."

"What happened?" Peggy stepped around a clutch of seaweed. Under the rhythm of the waves, Hildy could hear the whine of mosquitoes.

"I was afraid," Hildy said. Then, as she dropped her straw bag and her towel: "I still—"

"What?" Under the bluffs, Peggy's face was shadow, just darkness and curves.

"Nothing," Hildy said, putting her sandals next to Peggy's.

The water lapped at her feet so eagerly that Hildy's ankles ached. _Ocean_, her body gasped, and she felt the saltiness sinking into the creases of her eyelids, her elbows and knees. She opened her mouth, rolled her tongue like a dog. She didn't care.

"I'm sorry I didn't let you in on the going-away present for Joan," she said, over the tide.

"That's okay." Peggy scrunched up the cuffs of her cropped pants. "I guess I should've planned for it."

"She was really fond of you," Hildy said, trying not to sound too jealous.

"I don't know why. We didn't understand each other very well."

For Hildy, this setting called for honesty. "I thought we were going to be friends. You and me." Hildy kneeled and plunged her arms into the water, feeling it roll over her sore shoulders. "But even when you were a secretary"—why did that word feel so derogatory, applied to Peggy?— "we didn't talk much."

They were waist-deep in the water now. The sky was easing into a gentler shade of blue; the sun would rise soon. "When I went to school, my least favorite part was lunchtime," Peggy said. Her shirt was soaked through, and Hildy could see the outline of a bikini underneath.

"In the cafeteria, I never knew where to sit. There was never a, a table where I belonged. But at work, I don't have to worry about that. It's always the same desk."

Hildy thought of bag lunches, fat camp rumors, pink lipstick. She wanted to say, "We're proud of you" or "Joan liked you best" or simply "Harry Crane, Harry Crane," until Peggy understood. Instead, she reached under the churning water for the other girl's hand and said, "I still dream about the Ganges."

Then Hildy kissed her, quick, before the sun could rise.

**********

Monday morning, Peggy strolled in the office with bug bites on her forearms and calves.

"Christ, Pegs, it looks like you got eaten alive," Ken said.

"In a manner of speaking," Peggy said coolly, as Kurt and Smitty snickered and Hildy's ears turned warm.

Eventually, the bite marks faded. Hildy didn't want them to. Peggy kept eating lunch at her desk, and Hildy still walked to the train station with Allison. Autumn came; she started dating a math teacher named Peter. She heard from the travel agency girls about Peggy's man, who wore turtleneck sweaters and smelled like pine cones.

The day after the Great Sterling-Cooper Coup, Hildy was helplessly shuffling papers when she saw a postcard inserted under her desk blotter. It was a watercolor of the Fire Island Lighthouse, with a faint brown ring on the left side. The back read:

_au revoir mais pas pour toujours_

p.s. sorry I couldn't find any of Bombay  
p.p.s. sorry about the coffee stain, I meant to keep this for myself

She didn't realize she was crying until Smitty walked by and put a hand on her shoulder.


End file.
